The Rollo Wireless Printer X1040 specializes in making 4 x 6 inch shipping labels (but other sizes are available), prints from PCs and mobile devices, and its Rollo Ship Manager offers delicious shipping discounts.
The $279.99 Rollo Wireless Printer X1040 is one of many label printers aimed at small businesses and individuals who need to print 4 x 6 inch shipping labels, but it stands out by using Wi-Fi as the connection of choice. It is also designed to work with Works with Rollo Ship Manager for the cloud, which can connect to multiple online platforms to process and track all your shipments in one place.Even better, Ship Manager offers shipping discounts that are difficult for most small businesses to negotiate on their own for their mail volume.This combination makes the Rollo Wireless an Editors’ Choice winner in its class.
Label printers can be designed to hold label rolls inside or outside the enclosure.The Rollo belongs to the second group, and its dimensions remain at 3 by 7.7 by 3.3 inches (HWD).However, you’ll need at least another 7″ of free flat space behind the printer for the label stack, or for the optional ($19.99) 9″ deep stand (for stacking or rolls up to 6″) More space diameter and 5 inches wide.
The printer is made of shiny white plastic with purple highlights on the front and rear label feed slots and the top cover release latch.However, you will rarely need to use the last one – feed the paper into the back slot, the printer’s mechanism will take over, move back and forth to find the gap between the labels and size the labels, then place the leading edge just right to print the first one Location.
According to Rollo, the printer does not require proprietary labels, but can use almost any die-cut thermal paper roll or with a small gap between labels and a width of 1.57 to 4.1 inches.The company does sell its own 4 x 6 tabs for $19.99 in packs of 500, which drop to $14.99 (3 cents per tab) if you opt for a monthly subscription.It also offers 1,000 rolls of 1 x 2-inch labels for $9.99 and 500 rolls of 4 x 6-inch labels for $19.99.
An online video clearly explains the process of setting up and connecting over Wi-Fi using the Rollo app downloaded to your phone or tablet.While the X1040 has a USB port and Wi-Fi, there’s no reason to buy it if you don’t plan on going wireless — the company’s USB-only wired label printer offers what Rollo says is essentially the same performance, but for 100 less Dollar.The advantage of wireless printers is that they are easy to use and do not require drivers to be installed on the phone.
The Rollo Wireless submitted for review didn’t come with a tag app, though the company said an app in development would be available online.As of this writing, you can print with just about any program with a print command, Rollo says, as well as on all major shipping platforms and online marketplaces.What’s more, the printer also works with the cloud-based Rollo Ship Manager, which you can register on the Rollo website.The service charges 5 cents per printed label.(Your first 200 are free.)
You don’t have to use Rollo Ship Manager with the X1040 (instead, you can use Rollo Service with printers from other manufacturers).But it offers several advantages, and if you want to handle your shipping from your phone or tablet, Ship Manager is easier to use with the X1040 than a third-party printer.
One major benefit is shipping discounts — up to 90% for USPS and 75% for UPS, according to Rollo, and FedEx’s discounts are still being negotiated at the time of writing.Those percentage claims are huge, and I didn’t see that big of a discount in testing.But Rollo Ship Manager does save a lot of money: when creating a label, the system shows both the standard price and the discounted price, which in my experience is around 25% to 67% lower.I also confirm that the standard price quoted by Ship Manager for USPS matches the price calculated on the USPS website.
Ship Manager has other advantages.In a nutshell, it gives you a single interface for USPS and UPS, FedEx is expected to be added, and 13 online shopping platforms including Amazon and Shopify.You can set it up to connect to various platforms for downloading orders, or manually enter shipping information (as I did) and choose from a list of costs that display various options, such as USPS Priority Mail 2- Day, UPS Ground, and UPS Next Day Shipping.
When you print labels from Ship Manager, the data flows from the cloud to the PC or handheld device where you issued the print command, and then to the printer, which means the device and your PC, phone or tablet must be on the same network.However, since Ship Manager is a cloud service, you can set up labels anywhere you can connect to the Internet and print them later.You can also download the label as a PDF file and reprint it, or void it, print a packing slip, create return labels with just a few screen tapsor mouse clicks, and set up a pickup.
This is a key advantage of the X1040 if you use Rollo Ship Manager on a PC and other printers work in much the same way as the X1040, but not if you use a mobile device.The Rollo mobile app lets you print on your X1040 with just one tap; for any other printer on the network, you’ll need the appropriate print driver installed on your phone or tablet.Even if a driver is available, it must be selected from the list every time you print.For printers without mobile device drivers, you can email the PDF file to your desktop PC and print from there, but if you prefer to use your phone or tablet to set up the labels, this can quickly become annoying.
The Rollo was fairly quick in my tests, if below its rated 150mm or 5.9 inches per second (ips).Using Acrobat Reader (using our standard testbed PC and Wi-Fi connection) to print labels from a PDF file took 7.1 seconds to print a single label, 22.5 seconds to print 10 labels, and 91 seconds to print 50 labels (3.4ips average).By comparison, the Zebra ZSB-DP14 prints at just 3.5ips, and the FreeX WiFi thermal printer takes an average of 13 seconds to print a label (its Wi-Fi print job can only print up to eight labels).
Label printers connected via USB or Ethernet, including the iDprt SP420 and the Arkscan 2054A-LAN, our current Editors’ Choice midrange 4 x 6 Ethernet-capable label printer, are usually faster than Wi-Fi -Fi devices.This allowed them to score closer to their rated speed in our tests.For example, the Arkscan achieved its 5ips rating, while I timed the iDprt SP420 at 5.5ips, which is close to its 5.9ips rating with 50 tags.
Rollo’s 203dpi print resolution is common in label printers and provides typical output quality.The smallest text on USPS labels is easy to read, and the barcode is a decent dark black with sharp edges.
If you prefer Wi-Fi to a USB or Ethernet connection, even if you don’t print a lot of shipping labels, the Rollo Wireless Printer X1040 is a strong contender — the FreeX WiFi thermal printer is cheaper, but it’s slow to Enough to get noticed, and it’s able to print multiple labels in a single print job.The ZSB-DP14 has the advantage of working with Zebra’s online labeling application, but is more difficult to set up, as does the USB-only iDprt SP420.The Arkscan 2054A-LAN offers Wi-Fi and Ethernet, but isn’t a shipping label specialist like Rollo.
The more shipping labels you print, the more reason to choose the X1040, especially if you find it convenient to use your phone or tablet to enter shipping information and print.In short, Rollo printers deliver good performance, and Rollo Ship Manager cloud service saves shipping costs (and works smoother with the X1040 than any other printer).A 4 x 6-inch Wi-Fi printer, this printer has won a Rollo Editors’ Choice award for medium-volume shipping label printing.
The Rollo Wireless Printer X1040 specializes in making 4 x 6 inch shipping labels (but other sizes are available), prints from PCs and mobile devices, and its Rollo Ship Manager offers delicious shipping discounts.
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M. David Stone is a freelance writer and computer industry consultant.A recognized generalist, he has written on a variety of topics including experiments in ape languages, politics, quantum physics, and overviews of top companies in the gaming industry.David has extensive expertise in imaging technologies (including printers, monitors, large screen displays, projectors, scanners and digital cameras), storage (magnetic and optical) and word processing.
David’s 40+ years of writing about science and technology include a long-term focus on PC hardware and software.Writing credits include nine computer-related books, major contributions to four others, and more than 4,000 articles in computer and general interest publications nationally and worldwide.His books include The Color Printer Underground Guide (Addison-Wesley), Troubleshooting Your PC (Microsoft Press) and Faster, Smarter Digital Photography (Microsoft Press).His work has appeared in many print and online magazines and newspapers, including Wired, Computer Shopper, ProjectorCentral, and Science Digest, where he serves as a computer editor.He also writes a column for the Newark Star Ledger.His non-computer-related work includes the Project Data Book for NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (written for GE’s Astrospace Division) and occasional science fiction short stories (including simulation publications).
David wrote most of his 2016 work for PC Magazine and PCMag.com as a contributing editor and principal analyst for Printers, Scanners, and Projectors.He returned in 2019 as a contributing editor.
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Post time: Feb-24-2022
